People

Bhagya Rangachar, Founder and Managing Trustee - lived in the U.S. and worked as a Software Professional. She also has an extensive background in the field of social service in the U.S., having worked for the Blind Association for many years both as a volunteer in the rehabilitation program as well as an Executive Director for the organization. She has also worked for the adult literacy programs in the U.S. She believes that each child that is set free with education, in turn, will set a chain of actions that frees many others.




Aravind Sitaraman, Trustee - has 18 years of experience in the high-tech industry. He has been working for Cisco System for the last 6 1/2 years. He has created numerous technologies and holds many patents. He was the Chairman of DSL Forum's Auto-configuration of DSL End Points and Co-Chairman of DSL Forum's Voice over DSL Forum. During his stay in the United States, Aravind started a policy-influencing body that had a membership of 5000 Indian-American professionals. One of his goals is to start a web-based newspaper those links intellectuals and the educated on issues that concern India.



Harsha Murthy, Trustee - is currently Executive Vice President and Corporate Head- Strategic Planning and Business Development for King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He currently serves and has served on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards of directors, including those of Electrolux Corporation, Duke University Libraries, Battery Dance Company of New York, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Circle Networks, and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. He has also lectured widely before business, government and professional groups and at colleges and universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, the University of Richmond and Georgetown. Born in New Delhi, India, Mr. Murthy was raised in Ohio. He received a Bachelor's degree from Duke University and a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School and completed additional course work at Harvard College and Oxford University.

Saroj Gandhi, Trustee - grew up in North India. She was working on her master's degree in English Literature when she got married and moved to the states as a World Bank spouse. She has given her time to various causes as a volunteer over the years. She is a student of Vedanta and that is a big part of her life now. She says she has been extremely blessed and wishes to share her good fortune in any way that she can.

Jai Shree Poddar - "An ever present drive to 'make things' to work with material substance during formative years led to my training as a Textile designer at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in the year 1980. Some years of designing fabrics for the hand weaving industry, led to my joining the organized industrial sector. I have been working as Design Director for the company 'Himatsingka Seide' for the past seventeen years. My area of work has been in development of fabrics using all manner of inspiration and techniques using technology of a highly advanced nature The villages of India, its peoples and living environment has always been a source of joy and inspiration for me and some initiatives have been taken in recent times for an involvement in the craft sector of India."

Gurushri Swamy - is a development economist with more than twenty years of experience with the World Bank, Washington D.C., working on several countries in Africa and East Asia. Her work has covered many areas, including poverty, human development, gender and food security. She has also taught at George Washington University in Washington D.C. on development, and lectured at IIMB, NAIS and ISEC in Bangalore, and consults for donors and aid agencies.

Kentaro Toyama - is Assistant Managing Director of Microsoft Research India, in Bangalore. He leads a group that conducts research to identify applications of computing technology in emerging markets and for international development. From 1997 to 2004, he was at Microsoft Research in Redmond, where he did research in multimedia and computer vision and worked to transfer new technology to Microsoft product groups. In 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University, a private liberal arts college in Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in physics and from Yale with a Ph.D in Computer Science.

Dr. Krishna Challa - is a graduate from an I.I.T., two Master's Degrees in Engineering and Operations Research, and a Master's and Ph.D. from M.I.T. (Sloan School of Management and Economics/Finance). After a brief tenure in the U.S. private sector, he grew in the World Bank to become the manager of a varity of Units and Divisions. He recently left the World Bank with an early retirement from a senior executive position. His development at WB work covered some forty countries and focused on many disciplines and their inter-disciplinary links, including finance, capital markets, infrastructure (e.g., transport, water supply, environment and power), rural and social development including health and education, private-public partnership methods, decentralized development of countries and national and sub-national economic management.

Volunteers

The main strength behind CLT is the volunteers. There are several overlapping layers of volunteers that make it possible for the organization to function at an optimum level with minimum salaried staff. The essence of CLT's activities is the inter-connectivity and involvement of these groups at various levels.

Young Professionals: This is a group of young professionals (from the art, media and technology industries) who contribute time, resources and energy. They meet periodically in informal settings and come up with ideas and plans.

Women: A wide and energetic network of women taking responsibility of running nutrition and health programs in various schools.

Community: The main reason for the success of all CLT programs is the direct involvement of volunteers from the local community. CLT works with local community leaders, teachers, parents, housewives, and youth to enable continuous and effective functioning of the programs through the year.